A family celebration took my wife and me to North Oxfordshire for the weekend and gifted me an opportunity to visit a cricket ground that Tony Hutton had recommended as one of his favourites and just two weeks ago featured as ground of the week in The Cricket Paper, namely the Gordon Taylor Oval, the home of Great and Little Tew.
Liz and I were staying in the nearby village of Hook Norton and on a beautiful Saturday morning we were joined by my sister and her husband in anticipation of seeing a Home Counties Premier League Division Two match between top of the table Great and Little Tew and bottom of the table Dinton with an 11:00 start. With directions from my niece Helen, whose older daughter has played at the ground, we ignored the signs enticing us to visit The Falkland Arms, instead went up the hill, turned left and there it was, every bit as delightful as promised. But we sensed immediately that something was wrong for no match was in progress, just what looked like Saturday morning practice. Surely there had to be cricket in such a lovely setting on such a lovely day.
Inside the pavilion a man was carefully checking the bar stock and he informed me that the already relegated Dinton had cried off on Thursday and the match had been cancelled. The descent of my heart towards my fashionable summer shoes was arrested however when the bar auditor revealed that there would be a match starting at twelve thirty when G and L T fourths would play Cropredy III in a Cherwell League Div 9 cup match. Not quite the advertised fare but cricket none the less and worth an hour's wait. The man who informed me of this turned out to be the eponymous Gordon Taylor, the man after whom the ground is named and here he is. The handsome looking tomatoes in his lunch box were grown in his greenhouse, clearly a man for more than one season.
A disappointed member of The Tews firsts gave us directions to the village of Great Tew, a ten to fifteen minute walk away and there we enjoyed refreshment at The Falkland Arms before returning to the ground where the game was just under way with Cropredy (from the Banbury area) batting and making slow progress. As one might expect this was very much 'lads and dads' cricket, but encouraging that these two clubs can put out third and fourth teams at this late stage in the season. When we left Cropredy were 35 without loss after 13 overs but something of a collapse seems to have followed for they were bowled out for 90, a target which Tew reached for the loss of five wickets. They will play their semi final next Saturday
The Home Counties League at its highest level is dominated by two teams, Henley and High Wycombe who between them have won 11 out of the last 14 championships and after next Saturday you can make that 12, because the two meet in the last match of the season and currently occupy the top two places, well clear of Banbury who are third. The competing clubs are spread over five counties, Oxon, Bucks, Berks Hants and Middlesex.
The other pavilion at Tew
A very wet morning in The Lower Ure Valley and things will have to brighten up considerably before I make the journey to Harrogate where Yorkshire Women, who yesterday beat Surrey by 1 run, take on Sussex.
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